Monday, August 27, 2012

The Fed and Fiscal Responsibility

If the US goes off the fiscal cliff – that is, if tax
increases and spending cuts go into effect in 2013 as currently scheduled – can
monetary policy actions offset the macroeconomic impact? Ben Bernanke doesn’t think so – indeed he’s certain
they can’t – and he has said as much.

But on some level he must be wrong. True, it’s hard to think of any feasible
monetary policy action that would both be strong enough and have a sufficiently
quick impact to offset the fiscal cliff directly. But what matters more for monetary policy is
not the direct effect but the effect on expectations. Surely the Fed could alter expectations of
future monetary policy in such a way that the resulting increase in private
spending would be enough to offset the decreased spending due to fiscal
tightening. Just think, for example, if
the Fed were to increase its long-run inflation target. If nothing else, a sufficiently large
increase in long-run US inflation expectations would make the dollar sufficiently
unattractive to result in an export boom that would offset the fiscal
tightening. More important, perhaps, it
would make currency and Treasury securities less attractive to Americans and
encourage them to do other things with their wealth, such as buying houses and
durable goods and investing in productive capacity.

Of course that isn’t going to happen. To get the Fed to do something as drastic as
increasing its long-run inflation target, we’d need more than a fiscal cliff;
we’d probably need something like a repeat of the 1930’s. But at this point the Fed has substantial
amount of flexibility even within the confines of its long-run target, because
it hasn’t specified how that target would best be implemented. It hasn’t said, for example, whether the
target should be interpreted as a growth rate target – where policy constantly
begins with a clean slate, ignoring previous missed targets – or a level path
target – where policy always attempts to compensate for earlier misses and
regain the original target path. If the
latter case prevails, the Fed hasn’t said whether the target path would be
retroactive and if so how far back it would be retroactive (for example,
choosing 2007 as a base year for the target path instead of 2012). Moreover, while the Fed has affirmed its
commitment to its dual mandate, it hasn’t said how its inflation targeting
approach would interact with its employment mandate.

One way to implement the long-run inflation target would be
as follows. First, estimate the economy’s
potential output path that was, as of 2007, consistent with maximum
employment. Then add to this a 2%
inflation path starting from the 2007 price level. Express the result as a target path for
nominal GDP, and project that path into the future at the estimated future
growth rate of potential output plus 2%.
Pursue this path as a level path target.

Because nominal GDP has fallen so far below the path that
would, in 2007, have been consistent with 2% inflation at estimated potential
output, this approach implies a very dramatic period of catch-up. Essentially, the Fed would be committing to
follow a very aggressive pro-growth, pro-inflation policy over the medium run
as soon as it is able to get some traction on the economy. But it would be doing so in a way that is
consistent with its 2% long-run inflation target.

The effect on expectations would be quick and dramatic. By promising either growth or inflation or
both, the Fed would make hoarding cash (or other safe assets) look like a
clearly losing proposition. Depending on
whether you expect inflation or growth, either your money will lose its
purchasing power, or you will miss out on a lot of profits as real assets
recover. My guess is that, with this
change in the medium-run outlook, the resulting increase in private spending
over the short run would more than offset the fiscal cliff. Your guess may be different, but in any case we’re
talking about an impact considerably larger than what can be accomplished with
the kind of changes in its balance sheet that the Fed typically contemplates now
when it thinks about trying to stimulate the economy. If Ben Bernanke were contemplating anything
like what I am suggesting, he clearly wouldn’t be justified in being certain of
his inability to offset the fiscal cliff.

OK, this isn’t going to happen either. At least it’s highly unlikely. Ben Bernanke isn’t going to have his “Volcker
moment,” as Christina Romer called it, just in time to offset a huge tightening
in fiscal policy. And, with any luck,
the tightening in fiscal policy won’t be as huge as current law
prescribes: after the election,
hopefully, either one party will be in power, or Democrats and Republicans will
be able to come to enough of an agreement to prevent disaster.

But the sad thing is that preventing disaster almost
certainly means putting the US back on an unsustainable fiscal path – because
there’s very little chance that Congress will be able to agree on a credible
long-run fiscal plan at the same time that it agrees on a way to avoid going
over the cliff in the short run.
Assuming that we do go over the cliff and that the Fed doesn’t offset
the impact, the long-run fiscal results may not be much better, because the
growth impact of the fiscal shock – allowing for hysteresis effects – will undo
at least part of the improvement in the budget.
For those whose primary concern is fiscal sustainability, the best-case
scenario would be that we do go over the cliff and that the Fed acts
aggressively to offset the macroeconomic impact.

Again, it isn’t going to happen. And that’s kind of sad. The Fed’s timidity is creating a situation
where the only realistic choices – for the moment anyhow – are economic
disaster and fiscal irresponsibility.
Doesn’t that mean that the Fed bears some responsibility for the fiscal
problems that are eventually likely to emerge?

DISCLOSURE: Through my investment
and management role in a Treasury directional pooled investment vehicle and
through my role as Chief Economist at Atlantic Asset Management, which
generally manages fixed income portfolios for its clients, I have direct or
indirect interests in various fixed income instruments, which may be impacted
by the issues discussed herein. The views expressed herein are entirely my own
opinions and may not represent the views of Atlantic Asset Management. This
article should not be construed as investment advice, and is not an offer to
participate in any investment strategy or product.

285 comments:

Surely the Fed could alter expectations of future monetary policy in such a way that the resulting increase in private spending would be enough to offset the decreased spending due to fiscal tightening. Just think, for example, if the Fed were to increase its long-run inflation target.

I don't think this is sure at all. The Fed can announce whatever inflation target it wants; that only affects behavior insofar as (1) it is expected to still try to hit that target under changed conditions; (2) it actually has the capacity to hit the target; and (3) the private agents who would like to increase their spending assuming the believe (1) and (2), don't face balance-sheet or credit constraints that prevent them from doing so.

Set aside the first (familiar from in the form of time inconsistency and all that) and the third, though they are both important; it seems to me that nobody in the market-monetarist orbit has a good answer to the second. I assume that you or I cannot announce an inflation target and thereby change inflation or unemployment levels, right? The expectations channel only works to the extent that the central bank possesses tools *other than expectations* to achieve its target, otherwise there is no reason for anyone to expect its target to be achieved.

The Fed has been missing its targets for inflation and unemployment for some time now; it's not clear why giving it another target to miss is supposed to be a panacea.

"The expectations channel only works to the extent that the central bank possesses tools *other than expectations* to achieve its target"

And it does possess such tools: conventional OMO's and the federal funds rate target, which it can keep at zero for 10 years (or 15 or 20) instead of 5 (or 2 or 3) if it takes that long to hit the NGDP or price level target path. As long as we are expected eventually (within some finite time) to exit the liquidity trap, the Fed has the tools it needs to eventually hit the target. (And note that, in the case of Japan's severe liquidity trap, it actually exited twice, but the BoJ did not take those opportunities to move toward a better target. Presumably if it had had a target, it would have moved toward that target instead of tightening each time the depression started to lift.)

And since (assuming the liquidity trap eventually ends) the Fed can hit the target in the longer run, it is not so terribly hard to do so in the short-to-medium run, because agents will anticipate the eventual target hit and act accordingly, causing the liquidity trap to exit sooner.

I think your point (1) is actually a better one, but I think the time inconsistency problem would overcome itself if the Fed announced a regime change. It's hard enough to imagine that the Fed would announce such a regime change, but if it did so, it's almost impossible to imagine that it would subsequently reverse the regime change, barring very unusual circumstances. Surely the Fed cares about its institutional credibility: it's painfully difficult now for it to give up any of its "hard won" anti-inflation credibility; it would also be very difficult to give up anti-deflation credibility if it had that. And it doesn't need perfect credibility; it only needs to convince a sufficient number of agents to stop hoarding cash and Treasuries.

Regarding (3), surely not all relevant private sector agents are liquidity constrained. You don't need everyone to spend more, just enough people to spend enough.

And it does possess such tools: conventional OMO's and the federal funds rate target, which it can keep at zero for 10 years (or 15 or 20) instead of 5 (or 2 or 3) if it takes that long to hit the NGDP or price level target path. As long as we are expected eventually (within some finite time) to exit the liquidity trap, the Fed has the tools it needs to eventually hit the target.

But no, it doesn't possess those tools. Yes, it can, of course, keep the Fed Funds rate at zero for many years. But it cannot commit to doing so, and therefore it cannot significantly change expectations about whether it will actually do so.

You can write a model where the central bank is committed to whatever you like. But the human beings who make up actual central banks cannot commit to anything 15 or 20 years from now. (If they could, they still couldn't, since they'd be subject to the binding commitments of Feds past.) Strictly speaking, they can't bind future policy at all, and they certainly cannot bind policy made by other appointees of other future administrations. Policy at a horizon of more than a few years simply isn't available to mortal beings -- at least not monetary policy. Put another way, long-term monetary policy is set by everyone who has a reasonable prospect of influencing the political process over the next generation -- which means it isn't really set by anyone.

The thing about a regime change, from where I'm sitting, is that is precisely something you cannot announce. Anyone who can make a regime change, can reverse it; credible regime changes happen only when they're compelled by outside forces that are plausibly believed to be very unlikely to recur.

"...it cannot commit to doing so, and therefore it cannot significantly change expectations about whether it will actually do so."

The premise is only sort of true, and the conclusion doesn't follow from the premise. The future, including the future of Fed policy, is of course subject to uncertainty and will always be so, but there are many things the Fed can do, both verbally and in terms of "concrete steppes" that alter the environment faced by future policymakers, to change the subjective distribution of future policy actions.

It is not accurate to view credibility as a dichotomous variable (although this may sometimes be an appropriate first approximation for modeling purposes). From the point of view of some agents, the Fed shifted to a credible high-inflaiton regime in late 2008 and one only has to wait long enough for the (in this case unusually) long and variable lags to kick in. You and I may think these people are wacko, but they are nonetheless presumably part of the reason that the recovery, weak as it is, has continued and that the inflation rate has remained comfortably positive. Now at some point, some series of Fed actions (including but not limited to verbal actions) would convince me that the likelihood of higher inflation over the medium term has risen significantly. You may never be convinced. But the Fed doesn't need to convince you, because if it convinces enough people (like me), you will turn out to be wrong.

I assume that you or I cannot announce an inflation target and thereby change inflation or unemployment levels, right? http://www.braungresham.com/2013/02/cassie-gresham-to-speak-at-hcc-lunch-learn-on-march-28th/

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About Me

I’m an economist specializing in macroeconomics, with particular interests in labor and finance. Since finishing my doctorate at Harvard University in 1994, I have been involved in a number of projects related to economics, including writing econometric software, developing quantitative methods to forecast US Treasury yields, and co-authoring The Indebted Society with James Medoff. My occasional writing has appeared in various publications such as Barron’s and Grant’s Interest Rate Observer.

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